


The Thing About Pureblood Parties

by clarewithnoi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, James just wants to tell stories and make people laugh, Jealous Lily Evans Potter, Marlene and Dorcas are real ones, Oblivious James Potter, lily is a strategy queen even when jealous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27855014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarewithnoi/pseuds/clarewithnoi
Summary: Answer to a Tumblr prompt: "what about a jealous and possessive Lily?"James and Lily attend the Potters' New Year's party.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 17
Kudos: 112





	The Thing About Pureblood Parties

**Author's Note:**

> I made James a bit of a himbo and I shan't apologize for it

“I don’t want to be here anymore.” Grumbled Lily Evans, angrily, as she took an indelicate sip from her crystalline champagne flute. The nails clenching her glass were painted a robin’s egg blue—a perfect match to her dress robes of the same color, which flowed around her in waves of sparkling chiffon.

She’d been very excited to wear such a pretty outfit to the Potters’ New Year’s party—her second one since she and James started dating, but her first since they became, well, _serious,_ and one of her first real chances to rub shoulders with the esteemed elite of the wizarding world. It was quite the shame, as such, that all she wanted to do at present was flee the event altogether and huddle in front of her and James’s fireplace with a good book and a glass of wine.

“Yes, you do. Stop being annoying.”

“But _Marlene,_ ” she whinged, “just look around this place—it’s like someone took cutouts from every page of _Wealthy Wizards Monthly_ and just threw them all in this bloody ballroom.”

Marlene looked less than impressed with this analysis. She was herself a vision out of a magazine, modelesque in dark maroon dress robes which complemented her figure in a way that somehow seemed to defy the laws of nature, yet also did not contradict her poised image. It was a feat that only a McKinnon could accomplish.

“First of all, Lily, we both know that that magazine doesn’t exist.”

 _Well it should, and it should feature everyone at this party,_ thought Lily, although she made the wise decision not to share such a thought.

“Hardly the point, Marlene. I’m just saying—I feel a bit out of place in a room with just about every family from the Sacred Twenty-Eight.”

“Oh, please,” Marlene rolled her eyes, “it’s not like anyone can tell you’re not a pureblood. You don’t _look_ any different, you daft lunatic.”

Lily scoffed. “ _‘Oh, please’_ yourself—every person in here can trace every other person’s bloodline back to the twelfth century except for me. I might as well have a sign on my forehead that says _Very Much Inferior.”_

“Well, fine, but in that case I’ll just get one that says _Abandoned Ministry Job For Quidditch_ and we’ll both be set to disappoint everyone in the immediate vicinity.”

The two girls dissolved into giggles over their respective glasses of champagne—until they were silenced by a severe look from a woman in a very daunting feather boa. This only served to quiet them for a moment, before it was silently decided that said feather boa was much funnier than whatever they had been previously laughing about, and they were sent into another fit of rather vicious giggling.

“Alright then, who let you two vagabonds in to such a nice event?”

The two girls gave a start before they registered the voice and shared a conspiratorial grin. “Alright, Dorcas?” Asked Marlene as she summoned another champagne glass from a nearby table—for whom, it should be noted, it was unclear, “Enjoying the festivities?”

“Just had my ear talked off by some prehistoric ministry bloke,” Dorcas griped, “nearly set the curtains next to him ablaze just to create a diversion.”

“And what a damned shame you didn’t.”

“Ignore her,” interrupted Marlene before Dorcas could inquire about Lily’s sour mood, “she’s just upset that her boyfriend’s being flocked by a dozen or so seventh year girls.”

Affronted, Lily attempted to protest, “I am _not!”_ but was thwarted by Dorcas’s bark of delighted laughter.

“Oh, no bleeding way! Lily Evans, you sly little minx!”

“I am neither sly nor a minx!” Yelped Lily, aghast—and completely caught out. “And I am—not—jealous!” She punctuated each word with half-hearted swats at her friends’ arms.

Alright. Cards on the table, honesty being the best policy and all of that, Lily could not deny the uncomfortable bubbling in her stomach brought on by the sight of her boyfriend surrounded by hordes of…what even was the term? Fans? Groupies? _Harpies?_

James was stood about twenty-five feet away, his usual, charming self, smiling affably to a number of different girls as they peppered him with questions and followed his every move with unyielding and hideously adoring gazes. Ever the gracious host and former Hogwarts Head Boy, James looked comfortable and unbothered by the attention; in fact, he looked downright jovial to be talking to so many people at once at his parents’ party.

The real problem here was the dress robes—and how absolutely _sinful_ he looked in them. He was very clearly a posh boy who grew up going to formal events; he looked deeply at home in his navy-blue formalwear, like he was made to stride the halls of the Manor and bark orders to assorted underlings of varying respectability. 

The intricately patterned robes fit him like a second skin, and while that was not a problem in itself, it felt exceedingly problematic that there were other people present to notice it.

Lily was fighting a constant battle between seething and drooling. It would be a war of attrition until she either ran out of saliva or the rest of the partygoers fucked off and left them to have a moment of privacy.

But Lily Evans was _not_ the jealous girlfriend. She was a trusting partner, assured by over a year of uninterrupted bliss with her loving, devoted boyfriend, who never once looked astray and had been half in love with her since their third year at Hogwarts, who consistently said a hearty _fuck you_ to anyone that cared about blood politics, who invited her to this party with not even a thought that there might be people here who would think her lesser, because in his mind, she knew, she was lesser to absolutely no one in the entire world—

As if in slow motion, she watched a raven-haired girl in a lovely pink dress (she was not going to stoop low enough to insult the girl’s taste in dress robes, that would be unproductive) reach to place her hand on James’s navy-robe-covered arm, to which he responded by turning to look at the aforementioned hand, seeming alarmed, before politely shrugging it off in order to gesture grandly as a visual aid for his ongoing story.

Marlene and Dorcas sucked in twin breaths as they watched the scene unfold before turning to glance at Lily, whose eyes were wide and whose mouth was open in shock.

 _Right._ That was just about enough of that, then.

“Down your glass and give it to me,” instructed Marlene quickly and without tearing her narrowed eyes from the Girl in the Pink Dress, “I’ll grab you another one for when you get back.”

(Lily did just that.)

Dorcas chimed in, “and reapply your lipstick,” which she followed immediately as though they were orders from a drill sergeant, and handed the small container to her friend for safekeeping (and because Dorcas would look really quite gorgeous with that shade, it was beautiful with gold flecks that would complement her skin tone wonderfully, truthfully it was almost criminal she didn’t have it on at present).

“Right.”

Squaring her shoulders and fluffing her curled hair (and ignoring the crows of, “go get ‘em, Evans!” and “let us know if you need a second and third for a duel!” from her friends), Lily began to stride toward the small gathering of young women listening to James’s passionate storytelling. She maneuvered the room so as to approach him from behind—his arms were flailing about as he regaled his following with a tale of one of his and Sirius’s many practical jokes.

“And then Pad—I mean, Sirius and I, we did research for _weeks_ about what kind of spell would last that long. I mean, their Quidditch robes were green, so charming them pink was a tall order, if you really think about how the color wheel works and all of that, plus it had to last at least two games so as to not arouse suspicion—”

 _"Wow,”_ breathed a short, brunette girl rapturously, and Lily thought it would have been much easier and more efficient for her simply to say _take me now, O great prankster,_ “that’s just _amazing…_ ”

“Right?!” Lily had to give James credit—he may have actually been the most oblivious man to walk the planet. “I mean, we certainly thought so, too, but Mo—er, Remus wasn’t as impressed, being of the more logical sort, but y’know, he went along with it anyway—"

“Ahem.”

James recognized Lily’s voice immediately and spun around to greet her, seemingly forgetting that he was in the middle of a sentence. The four or so girls listening to him began to scowl in turns as they recognized a clear halt to his attention.

 _That’s right,_ she thought with undeniable smugness, _your five minutes are over. He’s already promised me the rest of our lives—best of luck slotting yourselves into the schedule._

“James,” her expression was carefully painted to appear thoughtful, with brow furrowed and lips slightly pursed, “I must say I’m feeling a little bit neglected out here; I’ve been mingling—" a lie, she’d been with Marlene, but there was no need for him to know that,“—for the past hour, and I don’t think you’ve kissed me once since we got to the party.”

The thing about Lily Evans? If she was jealous (which, at this point, it did no one any favors to deny), she was going to deal with it strategically—with bluntness, with a cherry-lipped pout, and with all of the necessary words to make sure that James Potter forgot the existence of every other woman in the room.

(It should be noted that James was much more likely to be the proponent of public displays of affection in their relationship, often throwing his arm around her waist should any particular man walk by, or ritually pressing a kiss to her lips in parting before apparating any place she wasn’t to follow. He reveled in the pronouncement of it all; the _I’m hers, she’s mine_ that a kiss could declare, the act of rebellion it was for him—a wealthy pureblood—to be so publicly besotted with a muggle-born witch.)

But Lily—quiet, logical Lily Evans, declaring her desire for her boyfriend to kiss her in the middle of a high-society event and in front of a number of well-to-do witches and wizards? _Unheard of._

“Gods,” breathed James, gaze focused very intently upon her face, “I’m so terribly sorry. There’s absolutely no excuse, my love.”

It very much did _not_ please Lily to see the scandalized look that flashed across the faces of Pink Dress and Company, thank you very much. Not one bit. At the very least, not that anyone would be able to prove.

The fire that sparked in James’s eyes was immediately recognizable once she finished speaking, so she was utterly prepared for the rush that shot through her body as he raced forward to pick her up after barely a moment’s pause. One hand clasped the back of her head, mindful of the array of bobby pins holding a mighty few red ringlets in place, while the other secured itself around her waist to keep her slightly elevated off of the ground.

Their lips met as the press of a kiss to a returning smile, slanting mouths and just the whisper of tongue—this was a formal party, after all.

They pulled away enough for Lily to whisper saucily in his ear, and she took this golden opportunity to flash a set of triumphant looks over James's shoulder; one to each girl that was still paying them begrudged attention. “Take me to a little corner of this mansion,” she murmured, “and make me forget how long I missed you?”

She felt, more than heard, the groan that her question elicited. It made her feel giddy. “By the time I’m through with you,” he promised, “you’re going to forget your _name_.”

“It’s a deal.”

He had yet to set her down; Pink Dress and the lot scattered, presumably to find another dashing young suitor to corner.

Only a few seconds more saw James and Lily striding hand-in-hand through the throngs of magical folk populating the cavernous ballroom, many of whom wanted to speak to James but were brushed off in an appropriately polite fashion. He was primarily occupied by staring at the side of Lily’s head as she guided him to the room’s entrance.

“ _‘I’m feeling a bit neglected,’_ you said. You _said_ that. And then you told me to kiss you.”

“I remember,” Lily replied calmly, very poorly attempting to suppress a smile, “I was there.”

“You told me to _kiss you_ in front of _people_.”

“Are you going to be repeating that for the rest of the night?”

“I’m trying to make sure I’m not in some very elaborate dream sequence, here, Evans. Give me a minute or two to process.”

They made it to a quiet corner past the large, double doors of the ballroom. Very suddenly, James was spinning Lily around to face him and walking them both forward so that Lily’s back pressed lightly against a marble wall. He looked down at her with a sideways grin. “You know,” he whispered, and leaned down to press a soft kiss to her neck, “that you’ve got nothing to be jealous of.”

Lily bit her lip as her eyes slid shut. _Caught._

Did she mind that he knew? She probably ought to mind. He pressed another kiss to the other side of her throat. She very much did not mind.

“Too many girls,” she mumbled, arching into him as his hands slid around her waist to draw her closer, “too nice of dress robes. Try and be uglier.”

A sharp laugh interrupted the kisses he was pressing in her jaw, and Lily resolved to be much less funny as a person.

“This is nice—normally, it’s _me_ getting jealous. I think I like the way things are turned around.”

His face was hovering a few inches from hers when she opened her eyes, bereft of his touch. “James?”

“Yes, my love?”

“I still remember my name—Lily Marie Evans. I think you’ve a bit of work to do.”

It was apparent that James agreed, because his lips were back on hers in the next second, and it did not take very long to make good upon his promise.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on Tumblr for more content and to say hi! My username is: clare-with-no-i
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Leave a comment, tell me your favorite line, etc!


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